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“Sicily is a fun-house mirror in which Italy can behold her national traits and faults distorted and exaggerated.”

AT JUST THE MENTION OF FEMALES IN SICILY, Mary Taylor Simeti comes out with: “There’s that pre-Greek ancient sculpture in the archaeological museum in Syracuse. A large seated woman, with two infants, each suckling a breast. And her head’s been lopped off. Such an image of the Great Mother! And of motherhood in general!” That’s typical of Mary’s wry, personal take on the island’s legends.

Mary’s writing—whether it’s memoir, travel story, or cookbook—weaves together her expatriate-in-Sicily experience with her extensive knowledge of mythology, history, and culinary traditions. It’s a rich mix that really prepared me for my first trip to the island—giving an honest picture of Sicily’s light and dark sides.

Mary arrived in Sicily in 1962, a New Yorker who’d just graduated with a degree in Medieval History from Radcliffe. Her plan was to spend a year volunteering at a community development center in Partinico, west of Palermo. In the prologue of On Persephone’s Island, Mary’s self-deprecating look back at her naïve but determined younger self hooked me. I won’t spoil it. Pick up the book.

Mary’s year in Sicily turned out to be much longer. While working at the center, she met an agronomist, Tonino Simeti. They married, had two children, lived in Palermo and then rebuilt Tonino’s family farm. Now, over fifty years after she first set foot in Sicily, Mary lives on that farm, called Bosco Falconeria.

“It was all accidental,” she laughs. These days, part of Bosco is converted into a B&B. So if you drive to Alcamo, forty miles west of Palermo, you could stop by and get a taste of those white mulberries Mary writes about, or whatever delicious thing happens to be growing in their organic fields and orchards.

When we spoke more about women and Sicily, Mary focused on Erice, about an hour’s drive west of her farm: “A fascinating place, laden with Venus myths.”

Erice is dramatically set overlooking the coast, on a mountain so high that there’s often a haze shrouding the view. It’s a tiny town of narrow cobblestoned lanes, hidden courtyards, medieval architecture, with sprinklings of baroque.

Venus worship here goes back to the Carthaginians, who worshipped her as Astarte, Goddess of fertility. Every spring, priestesses would release a flock of white birds from the Erice promontory to fly off to Astarte’s temple in Carthage. The birds would return nine days later with a red dove leading them, symbolizing nature’s renewal.

Greeks, who came later, claimed that the goddess (as Aphrodite) rose from the sea below Erice in a cockleshell chariot, making the mountain her sacred spot. It was where Aphrodite’s ancestor—the primordial God of the Sky Uranus, and his Titan son Cronus-clashed. Cronus sliced off Uranus’s balls with a sickle, then threw that sickle (where the name Sicily comes from) into the sea, along with his father’s balls. Up splashed Aphrodite! Once on her mountain, she bedded the Argonaut Butes, and gave birth to a son, who she named Eryx.

During Roman times, a huge Venus Erycina cult swept the Mediterranean. She was worshipped not only as Goddess of Beauty, but also of Sacred Prostitution. Romans would come to Erice to lay (in the Biblical sense) with Venus Erycina’s priestesses.

“Venus worship continued in Erice well into Christian times, all the way into the Middle Ages,” Mary said. “So the main church (The Matrice), was purposely built right at the city gate. The idea was the Madonna would catch the women before they could get to Venus, on the opposite side of town. It was a ploy by the Roman Catholics to put an end to pagan practices.”

Now the Castello di Venere, built by the Normans in the thirteenth century, stands where Venus’s temple once was. It’s a grand spot for amazing views. Also, as Mary writes, take a good look at the succulents growing out of the castle walls. The ones with smooth circular leaves, dented in the middle, are called Venus’s navelwort—or ombelico di Venere in Italian.

“And definitely stop by Maria’s for the pastries,” Mary said. That would be Pasticceria Maria Grammatico, a shop run by a woman who grew up in a convent orphanage, where she learned to make these traditional sweets. Maria is a sort of Erice celebrity, thanks to the book, Bitter Almonds, which tells her life story. It was co-written by her friend, Mary Taylor Simeti.

In Erice: Pasticceria Maria Grammatico, Via Vittorio Emanuele 14 (www.mariagrammatico.it). Check the website for information about pastry making classes with Maria.